IT Management Today and Tomorrow

The Role of Mobile Business Intelligence

The emergence of mobile business intelligence

By: Michael G. Miller & Frank Kowalkowski

Over 1 billion people today make up the mobile workforce worldwide. This has prompted a convergence of business intelligence (BI) and mobile technology. The idea of remote access to data business intelligence has been available for at least 40+ years starting with fixed and dial up lines and access to financial data and financial trends. Mobile business intelligence use has been around for at least 20 years. Using phones, tablets and laptops users were able to display sales data and statistics on sales performance for some time. While mobile BI is not really new, it has evolved considerably from its roots years ago.

Mobile access is defined as any wireless connection to a laptop, tablet or smartphone. This definition would include many mobile devices such as tablets used in a restaurant, wireless devices in a warehouse, tablets in the doctor’s office and smartphones used by sales representatives and mangers.